Prenatal Health Care in the United States

Question: Discuss about the Prenatal Health Care in the United States? Answer: Prenatal Care in the United States of America is regarded as a health care provided to women to treat them during their pregnancy period. The United States has differences in the socioeconomic sector that prevent the country to adopt an equal rate of prenatal care all throughout the country. The health care degrees vary by race, ethnicity, level of income and demographics. Surveys have shown that almost one-fifth of US women do not utilize prenatal care during their first phase of pregnancy. They also reveal that the parts of the United States with low socio-economic conditions cannot access the health care as compared to the women staying in urban areas. Women with higher income seek more prenatal care than that of women with low income (Frost, 2013). The priorities and roles of prenatal care are largely affected by the cultural discrimination in South Africa (Tomlinson, et al. 2014). The family structure of the South African people is almost unimaginable. They have the Ubuntu philosophy and that instructs them to see everybody as a greater whole. They have high reproductive rates as compared to the other countries and its maternal rate has worsened in the past few years. On the other hand, India is a developing country and it has several issues in providing prenatal care to the women of the country. The women with higher income can have access to better facilities than of the women in rural areas. This increases the infant mortality rate and increased diseases in newborns (Acharya, et al. 2015). Risk factors during the pregnancy period increase. The above-mentioned facts reveal that the United States of America affords many opportunities to increase the economic growth of the people. They have unevenly distributed the wealth in various categories of people according to their population growth and several historical factors. Therefore, the poor women have less access to the health care provided by the professionals of health care. However, the government of the United States of America has taken the initiative to provide health care to the women with low socio-economic status. On the other hand, South Africa and India have been facing similar problems in the health care sector. Both the countries are developing and do not have developed infrastructure like the United States of America. Therefore, the countries need to adopt various measures to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor and then they would be able to provide equal health care to the people in their countries (Heberlein, et al. 2015) This particular report brings out the differences in providing health care to the people of the above-mentioned countries. However, the United States of America is a developed country and has improved infrastructure to sort the differences among its community of people. The US government has adopted various measures to decrease the infant mortality rate and increase the infant birth rate. The government is trying to increase the employment opportunities to assure a fair distribution of wealth. This would further ascertain equal health opportunities to all the pregnant women in the said country who require prenatal care (Creanga, et al. 2015). References Acharya, A., Lalwani, T., Dutta, R., Rajaratnam, J. K., Ruducha, J., Varkey, L. C., ... Bernson, J. (2015). Evaluating a large-scale community-based intervention to improve pregnancy and newborn health among the rural poor in India.American journal of public health,105(1), 144-152. Creanga, A. A., Berg, C. J., Syverson, C., Seed, K., Bruce, F. C., Callaghan, W. M. (2015). Pregnancy-related mortality in the United States, 20062010.Obstetrics Gynecology,125(1), 5-12. Frost, J. J. (2013). US Womens use of sexual and reproductive health services: Trends, sources of care and factors associated with use, 19952010. Heberlein, E. C., Picklesimer, A. H., Billings, D. L., Covington-Kolb, S., Farber, N., Frongillo, E. A. (2015). The comparative effects of group prenatal care on psychosocial outcomes.Archives of women's mental health, 1-11. Tomlinson, M., OConnor, M. J., Le Roux, I. M., Stewart, J., Mbewu, N., Harwood, J., Rotheram-Borus, M. J. (2014). Multiple risk factors during pregnancy in South Africa: the need for a horizontal approach to perinatal care.Prevention Science,15(3), 277-282.